Wall Street firms are having a tough quarter and the revenue warnings are beginning to come in, the New York Times reports. JPMorgan Chase was the first to ring the alarm bell when it reported its third-quarter trading revenue is expected to drop 8% from same period a year ago, while investment banking is seen falling by a third. The Times notes that J.P. Morgan was one of the first... Read more

What happened to Sallie Krawcheck? Was her departure from Bank of America a matter of sexism or boardroom politics? Probably some of both. As part of the changes at Bank of America, David Darnell, who previously ran Bank of America’s commercial banking operations, is now running wealth-management operations previously overseen by Krawcheck—which included its Merrill Lynch Wealth Management team of financial advisors. The wealth management story is curious since Krawcheck seemed... Read more

Although HSBC Holdings PLC has confirmed the possible sale of its full-service Canadian investment advisory unit, an HSBC Canada official tells eFinancialCareers that the bank remains committed to growing its Canadian businesses—including pieces of the wealth management operation which, she said, are absolutely not up for sale. “As HSBC Group CEO Stuart Gulliver has said, Canada is a growth market for HSBC,” Sharon Wilks, HSBC Bank Canada’s assistant vice president for... Read more

Bank of America plans to cut its annual spending by $5 billion in the next two years, Reuters reports. Most of the reductions will come from the firm’s consumer banking and bank systems architecture, CEO Brian Moynihan said, according to Reuters. “The company built itself through acquisitions over decades and has not properly integrated systems and closed unnecessary branches,” Reuters writes. “Bank of America has about 50 senior employees reviewing... Read more

Could Bank of America be restructuring itself in the image of the Merrill Lynch? Before being acquired by BoA, Merrill was at one time divided in two parallel universes, Consumer Markets and Capital Markets? And now BoA has created its own Consumer Division headed by David Darnell and a Capital Markets Institutional Investment Banking Division under Tom Montag. Moreover, today's announcement that Michael Terry will join the company as global head... Read more

Deutsche Bank’s 10 billion euro profit goal for 2011 has been jeopardized by the recent global turmoil, Dow Jones reports. Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman says the firm may still reach its goal, but that this is "predicated on a recovery in European capital markets and progress with regards to a solution of the European debt crisis," according to Dow Jones. The agency notes the bank’s profit outlook has become... Read more

Bank of America appoints David Darnell, Tom Montag COOs; Sallie Crawcheck and Joe Price to leave. [DealBook] Standard Chartered names Jeremy Bolligton new regional head of Americas origination and client coverage. [Reuters] Jefferies nabs Christopher Burns from Goldman Sachs to manage leveraged finance investment banking. [Bloomberg] BNY Mellon Asset Management names Christopher Sheldon as new Dreyfus CIO. [On Wall Street] Barclays Capital nabs Andrew Richards from Morgan Stanley to head... Read more

Bank of America has reshuffled its top management as it struggles to deal with falling shares and growing legal troubles, DealBook and other media are reporting. David Darnell and Tom Montag were appointed as co-chief operating officers and will report to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. Sallie Krawcheck, head of global wealth and investment management, and Joe Price, head of consumer and small business banking are leaving. Darnell,... Read more

Advisors are increasingly targeting higher net worth clients needing more detailed and informed financial advice, while seeking to add still more letters after their titles. As recently as 10 years ago, the hiring and training that went on in the advice space was clearly “sales-oriented,” observes Robert Seaberg, managing director at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in New York. It was all about “the art of persuasion—how to close,” recalls the executive, who... Read more

In 2009, when investment banks were making thousands of layoffs, wealth management was considered something of a sanctuary from the cuts. We're not quite back to those bleak times, but in the wake of heavy job cuts, more people are now considering the switch. Both Credit Suisse and UBS have unveiled plans for extensive job cuts in recent weeks. Wealth management certainly isn't sheltered from these plans, but it's less... Read more

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is preparing to sue some of the nation's largest banks over soured mortgage bonds, according to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The agency which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file in federal court against a dozen of the nation’s biggest banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank on charges of misrepresenting mortgage securities... Read more

Bank of America Merrill Lynch appoints Catherine Cai and Bing Wang as China investment banking co-heads. [Wall Street Journal] UBS Wealth Management hires Michigan financial advisors Makram Talia, Robert Loupee and Michael Graziani from Bank of America. [On Wall Street] RBC Wealth Management nabs four California financial advisors from Bank of America. [On Wall Street] UBS Wealth Management taps financial advisor Brian Zalewski from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. [MarketWatch] Raymond James hires three advisors... Read more

Hedge funds are set to book their worst month since October 2008 and one of their five worst months ever, Financial Times reports. Fund managers lost an average 4.1% in August, with equity-focused funds losing a whopping 6.9%, the Financial Times notes, citing data from Hedge Fund Research. That’s a “staggering drop for an industry that prides itself on risk management, and charges accordingly,” the newspaper writes. Strategies that focus... Read more

UBS Wealth Management Americas, the U.S. brokerage arm of UBS AG, has told staffers that the company is planning no financial adviser cuts in connection with the Swiss bank's announced plans to eliminate 3,500 positions across much of the firm. “These reductions will occur mainly in the investment bank and Swiss bank, and they will have little to no direct effect on you, our advisers," the U.S. brokerage's chief executive, Robert... Read more

Some Wall Street firms returned to business as usual today after escaping Hurricane Irene mostly unharmed, while others expected to remain closed, Bloomberg reports. Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are among the firms in the evacuation zone that will be open for business, while nearby American Express will remain shuttered and is asking employees to work from home, Bloomberg says. The New York Stock Exchange and other financial markets... Read more

Do not underestimate the importance of your resume. It’s usually the first thing a recruiter will see about you and while a recruiter can sometimes ‘sell’ you to an employer based upon what they know about you as a person, they may be less inclined to do so if they know your resume is strewn with errors. These are the most common mistakes we come across. 1) Typos, spelling mistakes... Read more

UBS is the latest major bank to announce massive lay-offs to cut costs and trim down for difficult years ahead, Reuters reports. Switzerland’s largest bank says 3,500 employees will be laid off, or 5.3% of total staff. Almost half of the cuts will occur in the investment banking unit; the reductions will pare expenses by $2.5 billion each year. “Like rival Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS has been grappling with... Read more

Can it really be that Canada is finally succumbing to some of the U.S. propensity for work slowdowns, layoffs, and erring on the side not hiring in order to hang onto cash or at least get their bearings until things stabilize? Canadian careers guru Alan Kearns observes banks have clearly been spooked by the latest intenense gyrations in U.S, stocks, creating an environment in which “the overall growth (hirings) people were... Read more

Bank of America will lay off 3,500 employees before October, and could fire thousands more later on as it completes a wider restructuring, The Wall Street Journal reports. The move comes as Bank of America deals with the consequences of $1 trillion of problem-loans on its books and increasing economic woes, Reuters adds. “The 3,500 positions are spread across the nation's largest bank by assets, including investment banking and trading, and the... Read more

Editor's note: This guest comment originally appeared on our Asian sites but is applicable here as well It used to be that, during an interview process, if you did well with the grey-hairs you were (in Tony Soprano parlance) a ‘made man.’ It didn't matter if the sneering junior with a chip on his or her shoulder liked you. The senior guys had the last word. If you managed to go... Read more